SATO SOLUTIONS
loading demos
press any key to skip
01industry.painters
Painting SEO is the work of getting a painting company found by Portland homeowners for the job they need this month: in Google's map pack, in the results under it, and in the AI answer. I do it for Portland painters from an office in the Pearl District: the profile, a page for every service and city, the citations, and the records an AI verifies, with the price published.
Numbers pulled 21 September 2026 · Portland, OR and the metro
Portland painters pay Google up to $30 a click for searches the top three get for free. I build the foundation that puts you in the pack, in the organic results, and in the AI answer, then hand you the numbers every month.
Painting is two businesses on one calendar. Exteriors run from May to September, interiors and cabinets carry the winter, and the searches split the same way: 8,900 a month for exterior painters near me, 10,000 for interior, and 2,800 for cabinet painters at a difficulty of three. Most Portland painting sites have one page that lists all of it and ranks for none of it.
This page is what I would do for a painting company in the Portland metro: the actual search numbers, the three places you have to show up, and the first ninety days written out. Every figure comes from Ahrefs on the date below.
02section.searches
The searches a Portland homeowner makes when the trim goes gray or the kitchen looks tired, how often, and what a click on each one costs a company that buys it instead of earning it.
| search | per month | per click | note |
|---|---|---|---|
| painters near me | 59,000 | $5 | the map decides this one |
| house painters near me | 28,000 | $5 | |
| painting contractors near me | 14,000 | $4 | |
| interior painters near me | 10,000 | $6 | the winter half of the year |
| exterior painters near me | 8,900 | $7 | the summer half |
| cabinet painters near me | 2,800 | $6 | difficulty 3, an open door |
| painters vancouver wa | 200 | $8 | |
| house painters portland | 150 | $30 | the highest click on the list |
| exterior painting portland | 150 | $18 | |
| cabinet painting portland | 150 | $13 | difficulty 0, nobody has written the page |
| house painters vancouver wa | 150 | $8 | |
| interior painting portland | 90 | $14 | |
| painters lake oswego | 90 | $16 | difficulty 1 |
Ahrefs, US, September 2026. Volume is monthly searches. CPC is what advertisers pay per click today. Multiply the two and you have what advertisers would pay for those clicks. The map ranks businesses that have both a complete Google Business Profile and a website that backs it up. Missing either one puts you below everyone who has both, before reviews are even counted.
03section.places
The map, the ten links under it, and the answer an AI gives when someone asks it instead of Google. They are three different games, and most Portland painters are only playing one.
The three-pack is the first thing on the screen and the last thing most painters work on. It runs on your Google Business Profile: Painter as the primary category, interior, exterior, and cabinet painting listed as services, photos from real jobs, reviews that keep coming, and whether every directory on the internet agrees on your phone number. Look at the capture. Arrowhead holds third place on 62 reviews while the company above it has 369, which tells you the pack is not a review count contest. It is a completeness contest that reviews then settle. The company at the top of the page is not in the pack at all; it is paying to sit above it.
Under the map come the directories: Angi, Thumbtack, Yelp, Nextdoor, and the franchise sites that have a page for every service in every city. A directory outranking you for your own service means the page it wants is missing from your site. Interior painting, exterior painting, cabinet painting, deck staining, Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Vancouver: one page each, written for the person searching, with the starting price on it, fast on a phone.
/services/interior-painting
/services/exterior-painting
/services/cabinet-painting
/pricing
/areas/lake-oswego
/areas/vancouver-wa
one page each, written for the person searching
ChatGPT does not read the map. It reads what the rest of the internet says about you, and for this trade that is your own website, your license record, and the review sites. Ask it for a painter to quote a kitchen and it will name two or three companies and say why: the services listed on their site, the neighborhoods they name, whether they publish a starting price, and whether it can confirm they are licensed. A painting company with a current CCB record, a page per service, and a price in text gives it everything it needs. A twenty-year-old company with a one-page site from 2014 gives it nothing to repeat, so it repeats somebody else.
I have not published a capture for painters yet. The plumbing, roofing, and gutter captures on the other trade pages show the same pattern, and the consultation runs the prompts for your company and shows you the answers.
04section.gaps
Every painter I talk to is booked through the summer. These are the gaps that keep the busy ones from filling the other half of the year.
The estimate is a walkthrough and a number written on a pad, follow-up happens when someone remembers, and the customer who wanted the interior done in January is never called in January. Every exterior job is an interior job six months later, and almost none of them are booked.
The site says "interior and exterior painting, residential and commercial" on one page and stops. No cabinet painting page, no starting price, no list of the neighborhoods you work in, so Google sends the person searching to Angi and the AI has nothing to quote.
Photos live on a phone. Reviews get asked for when a job goes unusually well. Every finished room is a before-and-after and a review, and most of them are never asked for or never used.
05section.plan
Dated, in order, and you can stop after any step.
Day 1
How people find you now, where you show up for the searches above, what every directory says about you, what the AI answer says, and where the site loses the visitor. You get it in writing, with what each fix is worth.
Weeks 1 to 4
Google Business Profile rebuilt with Painter as the primary category and interior, exterior, cabinet, and deck work listed as services. Citations cleaned so the address, the phone number, and the CCB number match on Angi, Yelp, BBB, the Chamber, and the rest. Site speed fixed, schema added, one page per service with a starting price on it.
Months 2 to 3
Cabinet painting gets the first page, because cabinet painters near me is 2,800 searches a month at a difficulty of three and cabinet painting portland is a $13 click nobody has written for. Interior painting next, to carry the winter. Area pages for Lake Oswego, Beaverton, and Vancouver, with the neighborhoods named in text. GEO pages that answer the questions people put to ChatGPT, with your license number in them.
Ongoing
Rankings for the searches above, calls and forms by source and by season, a review engine that asks every customer at the right moment, and a winter reminder to every summer customer. One report a month you can read in five minutes.
06section.tactics
The generic playbook works. These are the parts that work harder for a painting company in Portland.
Cabinet painting is the one search in this trade where the door is open. 2,800 a month nationally at a difficulty of three, and cabinet painting portland at a difficulty of zero and a $13 click. It is also the job with the best margin and the one that runs in January, which is exactly when the exterior calendar is empty.
Interior painters near me is 10,000 a month and exterior is 8,900, and they are different customers in different months. One page covering both ranks for neither. Two pages, each written for the season it serves, is how a painting site stops being quiet from November to March.
A room, a cabinet set, a standard exterior. A range with the conditions on it is enough. It answers the question every caller opens with, it filters out the jobs you did not want, and it gives the AI a number to repeat when someone asks it what painting costs in Portland.
Oregon licensing is a fact an engine can verify, and a verified fact beats a claim every time. The CCB number in text on the site, matching the state lookup and every directory, is one of the cheapest things on this list and one of the few an AI checks before it names you.
Before-and-after is the whole sales argument in this trade, and most painters only photograph the after. The peeling trim and the dated cabinets are what make the finished shot mean something, and a page of real pairs from real Portland houses does more than any adjective on the home page.
07section.proof
The proof is a client's result. West Coast Deals, an eight-channel store I have worked for since 2022, launched its own direct-to-consumer website in October 2025. On a site under a year old, the same search and AI work took their Ahrefs organic traffic from about 20 to more than 500 between March and September 2026, with their ads switched off in August, and put their store in 5,400 AI answers in three months. Those are their numbers. The same playbook, the profile, the pages, and the records the AI reads, is what I would put to work for a painting company in Portland.
08section.pricing
The consultation is free. I come back with the scope of the project and what I would recommend, and the pricing is published: three monthly SEO plans with no setup fees, Local month to month and Growth and Superior with the website included on a six-month minimum, and three website builds at a one-time price. You can stop after any step.
form.consultation
Six fields, under two minutes. I reply within one business day with the scope and what I would recommend.
09section.faq
The profile and citation work moves the map first, usually inside the first two months. Organic pages take three to six months to settle, which is why the cabinet and interior pages get written in the summer and pay in the winter.
Usually not. Most painting sites need speed, structure, a page per service, and a price on the page. If the site cannot be fixed, I say so in the consultation and give you a fixed price for a rebuild.
Cabinet painting. It is 2,800 searches a month at a difficulty of three, cabinet painting portland sits at a difficulty of zero with a $13 click, the margin is good, and the work happens in the months the exterior calendar is empty.
A starting price for a room, a cabinet set, and a standard exterior is enough. It answers the first question every caller asks, and it gives Google and the AI a number to quote instead of sending the customer to a directory for an estimate.
For the AI answer it matters a lot. An engine prefers a fact it can confirm against the state record over a claim on a website, so the number in text, matching the lookup and every directory, is one of the cheapest things you can fix.
Generative engine optimization: being the company an AI names when someone asks it for a painter. For this trade the answer is built from your own site, your license record, and the review sites, which are the three things you can actually control.
No. The consultation shows what each click costs you today, and I will tell you when ads make sense, but I do not run them. The point of this work is to stop needing them.
I build the system that asks every customer at the right moment. The reviews come from your work. I do not buy, seed, or write them.
The consultation is free, and it comes back with the scope and what I recommend. Local SEO is month to month, Growth and Superior include the website on a six-month minimum, there are no setup fees, and website builds are one-time. Every price is on the pricing page.